Exclusive: Liars’ New ‘Scissor’ Video Is Strange, Awesome

Considering the time lapsed and the changes in the musical landscape since Liars’ most recent album came out, fans of the New York art-punk band could be forgiven for wondering if the group would still have its edge.

They needn’t have worried. Case in point: The trio’s video for the single “Scissor” (link opens iTunes). Out this week, the video, offered up exclusively to Wired.com, envisions the band members lost at sea (or perhaps just living out their Lost fantasies) and struggling to stay above water.

It’s an apt metaphor. The track begins with a requiem-esque chant over a loose wash of strings as lead singer Angus Andrew struggles to save his raft from being sunk by a rapidly growing pile of rocks (mounting insecurities, most likely). But as the bombastic chorus kicks in — a triumphant reminder of the spastic rock the band is known for, from 2001’s They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top to 2007’s self-titled record, the band’s most recent — Andrew is throwing the stones overboard and fighting to stay alive. (At this point in the video it’s helpful to go to Waaalt.com for full effect.)

How does it end for our struggling Liars? Watch and find out. The band claims the song is “a confession of inability brought about by the suffering of a close friend.” So it would seem they are concerned about adequacy on more than one level.

They shouldn’t fret. “Scissor” is just the beginning of the band’s fifth LP, Sisterworld, which promises to be as wonderfully strange and compelling as anything Liars’ have released yet.

To buoy their hopes, the band also has a little help from the indie rock elite this time around. The double-disc edition of Sisterworld, out March 8, includes “reinterpretations” of the album’s tracks by Devendra Banhart, Thom Yorke and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe.